The Legend of Colton H. Bryant
by Alexandra Fuller
Published 2008 by Penguin Press

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781594201837

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From the bestselling author of "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight" comes the unforgettable true story of a boy who comes of age in the oil fields and open plains of Wyoming.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 03/10/2008

Fuller, author of the bestselling Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, narrates the tragically short life of Colton H. Bryant, a Wyoming roughneck in his mid-20s who in 2006 fell to his death on an oil rig owned by Patterson-UTI Energy. A Wyoming resident herself since 1994, Fuller is expert in evoking the stark landscape and recreating the speech and mentality of her adopted state's native sons. Along the way, she sheds light on the tough, unpredictable lives of Wyoming's oilmen and the toll exacted on their families. Though the book is wonderfully poignant and poetic and reads more like a novel than biography, Fuller acknowledges that she has taken narrative liberties, composed dialogue, disregarded certain aspects of Colton's life and occasionally juggled chronology "to create a smoother story line," leading readers to wonder what is true and what invented for dramatic purposes. As such, it is difficult to assess Fuller's simplistic conclusion that the company's drive to cut costs killed the young man, though she is right to highlight the strikingly high number of fatalities in the industry. As a touching portrait of a life cut short and a perceptive immersion in the environment that nurtures such men, Fuller's volume excels, but in terms of absolute veracity it should be read with caution. (May 6)

America America
by Ethan Canin
Published 2008 by Random House

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780679456803

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From the bestselling author of "The Palace Thief" and "Carry Me Across the Water" comes a stunning novel, set in the Nixon era and today, about a great family, a political tragedy, and the impact of fate on history.

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This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation
by Barbara Ehrenreich
Published 2008 by Metropolitan Books

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780805088403

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In her first work of satirical commentary, "The Worst Years of Our Lives," Barbara Ehrenreich skewered the Reagan era. Now she brilliantly dissects one of the cruelest decades in memory-the 2000s-in which she finds a nation scarred by deepening inequality, corroded by distrust, and shamed by its official cruelty.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 03/24/2008

When a hospital employee whose hospital-supplied insurance doesn't cover her hospital-incurred bill finds her wages garnished, where's a political satirist to go for material? Feisty, fearlessly progressive Ehrenreich offers laughter on the way to tears in 62 previously published essays that show "the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer." She investigates pockets of poverty among undocumented workers, military families and recent college graduates. Ehrenreich's reach is capacious, encompassing not only unemployment, health insurance and inflation, but corporate spying, cancer studies, marriage education, the "abstinence training business" and "Disney's Princess products." Her passion, compassion and wit keep these excursions lively and timely-even when yesterday's headlines provide the immediate provocation, e.g., JetBlue's "snow snafu." The vignettes go down a bit like eating peanuts-too many at one time palls, but they're not unhealthy, unless you have an allergic reaction to Ehrenreich's message: "America is being polarized between the superrich few and the subrich everyone else." Entertaining Ehrenreich certainly is, but she raises a hard, serious question: "How many 'wake-up calls' do we need, people...?" (May)

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
by David Wroblewski
Published 2008 by Ecco

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780061374227

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This riveting saga of an American family captures the deep and ancient alliance between humans and dogs, and the power of fate through one boy's epic journey into the wild.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 02/18/2008

A literary thriller with commercial legs, this stunning debut is bound to be a bestseller. In the backwoods of Wisconsin, the Sawtelle family-Gar, Trudy and their young son, Edgar-carry on the family business of breeding and training dogs. Edgar, born mute, has developed a special relationship and a unique means of communicating with Almondine, one of the Sawtelle dogs, a fictional breed distinguished by personality, temperament and the dogs' ability to intuit commands and to make decisions. Raising them is an arduous life, but a satisfying one for the family until Gar's brother, Claude, a mystifying mixture of charm and menace, arrives. When Gar unexpectedly dies, mute Edgar cannot summon help via the telephone. His guilt and grief give way to the realization that his father was murdered; here, the resemblance to Hamlet resonates. After another gut-wrenching tragedy, Edgar goes on the run, accompanied by three loyal dogs. His quest for safety and succor provides a classic coming-of-age story with an ironic twist. Sustained by a momentum that has the crushing inevitability of fate, the propulsive narrative will have readers sucked in all the way through the breathtaking final scenes. (June)

Beginner's Greek
by James Collins
Published 2008 by Little Brown and Company

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780316021555

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Peter Russell finally meets the woman of his dreams, but in his room that night Peter discovers the paper on which she wrote her phone number is inexplicably gone. Both incisive and wonderfully funny, this is a brilliantly understated comedy of manners in which love lost is found again.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 10/01/2007

The two young professionals of Collins's polished debut, Holly and Peter, meet on a flight bound from New York to L.A. They tacitly understand they are soul mates, and she invites him to dinner, but Peter soon discovers that he has lost the number Holly wrote on a page torn from Mann's The Magic Mountain. With Peter's financial career and New York society as a mundane backdrop, years pass and Holly ends up married to Jonathan, a successful author and womanizer-and, conveniently, Peter's best friend. Still aching for his one-time seatmate, Peter marries Charlotte, a dull Francophile, because it "made sense." Charlotte, of course, is also in love with someone else-a former flame, Maximilien-Francois-Marie-Isidore. At Peter and Charlotte's wedding, Jonathan is struck by lightning, precipitating an endless series of events that changes the lives of family, friends and lovers alike-including Peter's boss and Charlotte's ex-stepmother. Former Time editor Collins, 48, writes as if fully aware that anyone who saw any one of a thousand other romantic comedies will find the plot familiar: he plays romantic comedy clichés with an expert coolness. Anyone for whom chick lit is a guilty pleasure will find the tone here multiple notches above the usual fare. (Jan.)

The Secret Scripture
by Sebastian Barry
Published 2008 by Viking Books

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780670019403

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Set against an Ireland besieged by conflict, "The Secret Scripture" is an epic story of love, betrayal, and unavoidable tragedy, and a vivid reminder of the stranglehold that the Catholic Church had on individual lives for much of the 20th century.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 03/31/2008

The latest from Barry (whose A Long Way was shortlisted for the 2005 Booker) pits two contradictory narratives against each other in an attempt to solve the mystery of a 100-year-old mental patient. That patient, Roseanne McNulty, decides to undertake an autobiography and writes of an ill-fated childhood spent with her father, Joe Clear. A cemetery superintendent, Joe is drawn into Ireland's 1922 civil war when a group of irregulars brings a slain comrade to the cemetery and are discovered by a division of Free-Staters. Meanwhile, Roseanne's psychiatrist, Dr. Grene, investigating Roseanne's original commitment in preparation for her transfer to a new hospital, discovers through the papers of the local parish priest, Fr. Gaunt, that Roseanne's father was actually a police sergeant in the Royal Irish Constabulary. The mysteries multiply when Roseanne reveals that Fr. Gaunt annulled her marriage after glimpsing her in the company of another man; Gaunt's official charge was nymphomania, and the cumulative fallout led to a string of tragedies. Written in captivating, lyrical prose, Barry's novel is both a sparkling literary puzzle and a stark cautionary tale of corrupted power. (June)

What Was Lost
by Catherine O'Flynn
Published 2008 by Henry Holt & Company

Paperback, English. ISBN: 9780805088335

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Jacket Notes:

Long-listed for the Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, and "The Guardian" First Book Award, "What Was Lost" is a tender and sharply observant debut novel about a missing young girl.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 03/17/2008

Stirring and beautifully crafted, this debut novel recounts how the repercussions of a girl's disappearance can last for decades. In 1984, Kate Meaney is a 10-year-old loner who solves imaginary mysteries and guesses the dark secrets of the shoppers she observes at the Green Oaks mall. Kate's unlikely circle includes her always-present stuffed monkey; 22-year-old Adrian, who works at the candy shop next door; and Kate's classmate, Teresa Stanton, who hides her intelligence behind disruptive behavior. Kate's grandmother has plans for Kate: send her to boarding school. But Kate doesn't want to go. Fast forward to 2003, where it's revealed through Lisa, Adrian's sister, that Kate disappeared nearly 20 years ago, and Adrian, blamed in her disappearance, also vanished. Lisa works at a record store in Green Oaks and is drawn to Kurt, a security guard whose surveillance-camera sightings of a little girl clutching a stuffed monkey hint that he might have ties to Kate's disappearance. Teresa, meanwhile, now a detective, has her own reasons for being haunted by Kate's disappearance. Gripping to the end, the book is both a chilling mystery and a poignant examination of the effects of loss and loneliness. (July)

The Condition
by Jennifer Haigh
Published 2008 by Harper

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780060755782

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Jacket Notes:

The long-awaited third novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of "Mrs. Kimble" and "Baker Towers" explores the immutable bonds of family witnessed through one turbulent year in the lives of the McKotches.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 02/18/2008

A dysfunctional New England family struggles toward normalcy in this poignant novel from PEN/Hemingway-winner Haigh, who follows the children of resentful, controlling, Paulette and distracted, needy Frank. Even during a childhood in idyllic Cape Cod, there are hints of a rocky future. When that future arrives, Billy, the most successful of the children, keeps a secret about his sophisticated New York life from almost everyone. Scott, formerly the uncontrollable brat of the bunch, sees himself in his own troubled son. Meanwhile, Gwen suffers from a genetic condition that prevents her from developing into womanhood. The story starts slowly, and while the setup feels familiar (a fractured New England family), the children take unexpected turns that shake up the narrative, leading to the most surprising twist of all: despite the sobering events chronicled, there's a strong nod to the healing power of love. Haigh allows the reader to sympathize with each of the family members, and, in turn, to see their flaws and better understand them. (June)

How Far Is the Ocean from Here
by Amy Shearn
Published 2008 by Shaye Areheart Books

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780307405340

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Jacket Notes:

Once in a while you read a first novel in which the narrative hand is so steady, the characters so lively and original, that you finish it certain you'll be hearing a lot more from this author. Shearn's [work] is just such a book.--Mark Childress, author of "Crazy in Alabama."

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 04/07/2008

As Shearns's accomplished and sophisticated debut opens, "hugely pregnant" Susannah Prue hides out deep in the desolate Texas-New Mexico border area desert, at the ramshackle Thunder Lodge motor inn. There she meets a variety of misfits, including the owners' mentally disabled teenage son and another guest's sexually confused niece, who become an essential if dysfunctional adoptive family to desperate, on-the-lam Susannah. Passive and oft-disappointed, Susannah made a fateful choice in deciding to serve as a surrogate mother to the wealthy but infertile Forsythes, Kit and Julian. The relationships among the three, we eventually learn, spiraled into tragedy, but the birth is imminent. Shearn's narration is fluid, shifting seamlessly among perspectives and time frames. The Forsythes verge on hard-edged rich-person caricature, but the rest of the cast is fully and compassionately realized, making for an affecting portrayal of the lengths people travel for love and companionship. (July)

The Story of a Marriage
by Andrew Sean Greer
Published 2008 by Farrar Straus Giroux

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780374108663

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Set in a climate of fear and repression--political, sexual, and racial--"The Story of a Marriage" portrays three people trapped by the confines of their era, and the desperate measures they are prepared to take to escape it.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 01/28/2008

As he demonstrated in the imaginative The Confessions of Max Tivoli, Greer can spin a touching narrative based on an intriguing premise. Even a diligent reader will be surprised by the revelations twisting through this novel and will probably turn back to the beginning pages to find the oblique hints hidden in Greer's crystalline prose. In San Francisco in 1953, narrator Pearlie relates the circumstances of her marriage to Holland Cook, her childhood sweetheart. Pearlie's sacrifices for Holland begin when they are teenagers and continue when the two reunite a few years later, marry and have an adored son. The reappearance in Holland's life of his former boss and lover, Buzz Drumer, propels them into a triangular relationship of agonizing decisions. Greer expertly uses his setting as historical and cultural counterpoint to a story that hinges on racial and sexual issues and a climate of fear and repression. Though some readers may find it overly sentimental, this is a sensitive exploration of the secrets hidden even in intimate relationships, a poignant account of people helpless in the throes of passion and an affirmation of the strength of the human spirit. (May)

Central Park in the Dark: More Mysteries of Urban Wildlife
by Marie Winn
Published 2008 by Farrar Straus Giroux

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780374120115

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As in her bestseller "Red-Tails in Love," Winn explores a once-hidden world in a series of interlocking narratives about the extraordinary denizens, human and animal, of an iconic American park.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 04/28/2008

What happens when curiosity about Central Park fauna trumps fear of the dark? The charm of Winn's wildlife accounts-besides its descriptions of the nighttime habits of New York City screech owls, bats and slugs-is its depiction of the community of fans who gather to observe and document even the slightest movements of the park's shyest denizens. Winn (Red-Tails in Love) is part of an informal group of bird-watchers who turn to the study of nocturnal species; using a black light and a sheet, they track moths, observe slugs having sex and search out the "boy's dormitory" of robins. Winn's riveting account of the last stage of cicada metamorphosis highlights the animating philosophy of these after-dark naturalists: "sharing our adventures increase[s] our own enjoyment of them." A surprising amount of science (owl-pellet dissection; official names for the stages of twilight) is packed into these narratives, illuminating the somewhat arbitrary line between enthusiast and expert, but never bogging down the reader. Winn's style is as conversational as a good friend's and as informative as a seasoned guide's. (June 10)

Explorers of the Infinite: The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes -- And What They Reveal about Near-Death Experiences, Psychic Communica
by Maria Coffey
Published 2008 by Jeremy P. Tarcher

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781585426515

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An energetic look at the spiritual lives of extreme athletes, this work asks why extreme athletes take the risks that allow them to push the limits of consciousness, what they encounter there, and what others can learn from them.

Lopsided: How Having Breast Cancer Can Be Really Distracting
by Meredith Norton
Published 2008 by Viking Books

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780670019281

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In her hilarious and wickedly irreverent look at life with cancer, Norton chronicles every step of her experience and rails against self-pity and victimhood.

Mind's Eye
by Hakan Nesser
Published 2008 by Pantheon Books

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780375425035

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Available for the first time in English, this book is the one that gave the popular Van Veeteren crime series its start.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 04/28/2008

World-weariness in a detective is well and good-but what if it ends up costing innocent victims their lives? That's the predicament in which Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren finds himself in this moodily affecting mystery, the first to appear in Nesser's native Sweden but the third to be published in the U.S. (after The Return and Borkmann's Point). Though the melancholy cop suspects accused killer Janek Mitter is innocent of drowning his new bride during an alcoholic blackout, Van Veeteren opts to focus on such more personally compelling matters as his own ruptured marriage and to let the judicial process run its course-until a second, truly shocking murder boots him and the book into high gear. The suspense intensifies as it becomes apparent that the initial killing was no garden-variety domestic drama but part of a bloody tapestry worthy of Greek tragedy. Even if you guess the book's final twist a bit early, this is a hauntingly powerful tale you won't soon forget. (June)

Shelter Half
by Carol Bly
Published 2008 by Holy Cow Press

Paperback, English. ISBN: 9780977945863

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A young woman's body lay undisturbed for a week in mid-November. So begins this novel about a few people in a Minnesota town who recognize cruelty that exists in the world around them. But it is a U.S. Brigadier General who brings them a surprise about one of their own.

Not in the Flesh: A Wexford Novel
by Ruth Rendell
Published 2008 by Crown Publishing Group (NY)

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780307406811

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From the award-winning author and grand dame of British crime fiction ("The Gazette") comes the chilling new novel featuring Chief Inspector Wexford and the Kingsmarkham Police Force.

Careless in Red
by Elizabeth A. George
Published 2008 by Harper

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780061160875

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In this eagerly anticipated novel, the "New York Times"-bestselling author brings back Scotland Yard's Thomas Lynley in a stunning mystery in which he's caught in the middle of a seemingly perfect crime.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 03/10/2008

At the start of bestseller George's stellar new suspense novel, the grieving Thomas Lynley, a Scotland Yard detective who left the force after the murder of his pregnant wife, Helen, in With No One as Witness (2005), is filling his days with a long trek in his native Cornwall.-During his ramble, Lynley stumbles on the body of teenager Santo Kerne, who apparently fell from a cliff onto some rocks, though it soon becomes evident that someone tampered with Kerne's climbing gear.-As the first on the scene, Lynley himself comes under suspicion, despite his lack of history with the victim, by the investigating officer, the capable but crusty Det. Insp. Bea Hannaford. Lynley fittingly plays a secondary role in the homicide inquiry as he continues to struggle to find a reason for living after his devastating loss.-The plausible resolution of the crime leaves enough ambiguity to satisfy readers who prefer psychologically sophisticated plots and motivations. 10-city author tour. (May)

Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon: And the Journey of a Generation
by Sheila Weller
Published 2008 by Atria Books

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780743491471

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Jacket Notes:

"Girls Like Us" is a groundbreaking and irresistible biography of three of America's most important musical artists--Carly Simon, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell--and offers an epic treatment of these mid-century women who dared to break tradition.

Undiscovered
by Debra Winger
Published 2008 by Simon & Schuster

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781416572671

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Jacket Notes:

In this lyrical, deeply personal book, three-time Oscar-nominated actress Winger reveals how she has drawn on her creative talents to transform a successful career into a fulfilling life. 12 b&w illustrations throughout.